A biography for Claire Denishasn’t been written yet.
“I can be unkind to someone in the street or in the subway - I'm a bad-tempered person - but I'm unable to be unkind to a character. They exist because of me, and I have responsibility for them.”
“Life is not better and more moral than it was in the '50s. It's just the same.”
“Making pizza is a great job. All that kneading the dough - everything to do with cooking is wonderful, sensual.”
“The history of colonisation cannot disappear.”
“Inside the family, you can go from hate to passivity to extreme love within the same hour.”
“I am always asked, 'You grew up in Africa?' Every time I introduce a film, or I'm interviewed, 'You grew up in Africa?'”
“A career for me is something like building a bridge. You know, where to put the lifts. You have a plan. I have a blueprint for each film, but not for my life.”
“I'm not witty.”
“Filmmaking creates a sort of - trust, maybe. It has led me to a group of people I feel good with. We have something in common because of film, when otherwise we might have nothing.”
“I was never very interested in my own experience, I think, in fact, if my films have a common link, maybe it's being a foreigner - it's common for people who are born abroad - they don't know so well where they belong.”
“I'm a very sinister person.”
“I really started watching films when I was 14. As I became a teenager, there was nothing that really interested me apart from music, books and films.”
“I listen to a lot of different kinds of music.”
“When making a film, if I feel nothing in my body, I can't work. I have to touch. I have to feel. I never stop touching.”